If you are an individual or part of a small group passionate about finding God already at work in your neighborhood through the abundant gifts of your neighbors, this one is for you!
The Good Neighbor Experiment is pleased to offer the:
Faith-Based Animator Network
A paid learning opportunity for those wanting to dive deep into neighboring and ABCD from a faith-based perspective.
The Faith-Based Animator Network (FAN) seeks to form Community Animators and connectors who are covenantally dedicated to their neighborhoods, including its people, ecology, and associations. These “Animators” recognize that God has abundantly gifted all their immediate neighbors with talents, passions, and stories, associational ties, informal networks of exchange, and physical assets.
By training in “neighboring” and Asset-based Community Development, they develop the tools to joyfully step into the role of “Community Connector,” working with the Great Weaver that is the Holy Spirit to discover hidden local assets, connect them to one another, and mobilize them towards the common dreams of God and their neighbors.
Animators are paid to build face-to-face relationships and curate an asset map over a 14-week cohort. They can apply for a second phase in which they carry out a relationship-driven, asset-based project that connects their neighbors and their congregation.
Throughout the cohort and beyond, animators form a community of practice and “community of care” to encourage, teach, train, celebrate, and pray for each other so that each feels fully supported to animate their own places.
FAN provides a collaborative space for those who are:
Community leaders and connectors where they live.
Interested or already involved in community organizing.
Motivated to create equity and compassion in their communities.
Passionate about strengthening their community and/or neighborhood from the inside out.
Ready to pay radical attention to what God is up to in their neighborhoods.
“I am more convinced than ever that my neighborhood is bursting with potential and gifts/assets.”
“[This cohort] has honestly completely changed my perception of myself and my gifts. I had to step outside of my comfort zone, and it made me realize that I am really good at hosting, I am good at talking to people, I am good at creating community...what a gift.”
What does the Animator journey look like?
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Submit an application to let us know you are interested in FAN. If we have a cohort open, we will contact you for an interview!
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Learning cohorts consist of 14 weeks of learning and practicing the foundational skills of ABCD at the local level. This includes 1-2 in-person workshops and 12-13 weekly 90-minute group sessions. Group sessions and paid, at-home mini-experiments guide animators through our textbook, The Connected Community by John McKnight and Cohort Russell, and put it into conversation with their faith and their experiences in their neighborhoods. The course is structured around the 8 Front Doors Challenge, and walks animators through all the steps to host a block gathering. Animators can go from knowing 0 or just a few neighbors all the way to hosting a gathering intentionally designed to weave together the neighborhood based on its hidden gifts.
Animators will establish presence in their neighborhood, learn neighbors’ names, get their contact info, establish and deepen caring relationships, find an ally on their block, plan a gathering, invite neighbors, and actually carry out the gathering!
All the while, they will have one-on-one conversations with most of their nearby neighbors to discover their gifts, connect neighbors together based on their gifts, and mobilize these gifts toward common dreams. They will plot these gifts on an asset map and have this tool to use and update in their neighborhood organizing for years to come!
Animators are expected to commit to a total of five hours a week.
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After completing the learning cohort (phase 1), Animators can apply for phase 2. Phase 2 Animators are known as Community Builders, and they delve further into the practical application of ABCD through a community project. This cohort is accompanied by guidance and support from TNM staff, and fellow Community Builders, offering Animators an opportunity to apply their newfound knowledge in a more extensive and immersive context. Faith-Based Animators will join Animators from our secular program, the Community Animator Network (CAN), to support each other weekly as a community of practice. Community Builders are paid $20/hr for up to 5 hours per week and can continue working on their project for up to a year.
Have some questions?
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On the contrary. FAN does not cost a thing! In fact, Animators are considered extended staff of The Neighboring Movement. Phase 1 animators are paid 5 hours a week at an hourly rate of $15, while Phase 2 Animators are paid $20 an hour.
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Typically, Animators work 3-5 hours a week. This includes the virtual meetings, readings, and community mini-experiments.
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Animators learn how to discover, connect, and mobilize the assets in their neighborhoods This includes learning to pay radical attention to what God is already up to, developing a posture of wholehearted, covenantal dedication to their place and its people, learning to listen to neighbors and what they care about, training to reflexively be looking for connections between neighbors and other local assets, and plotting those assets on a map that can be a tool to come back to again and again. All of these are key ingredients of ABCD. Animators will use McKnight and Russell’sThe Connected Community as a conversation piece and guide in their work.
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Animators will partake in community building by establishing consistent visible presence, creating allies in their area, building asset maps, and mobilizing around hyper-local interests.
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A FAN cohort starts with the foundational ethic of the Christian and Jewish faiths (and many others): “Love your neighbor as yourself.” We believe that all people are our neighbors, but that love is best expressed in a particular, rooted context with real, tangible individuals. We must love more than just our literal, immediate neighbors, but never less. Because we are in closest and most frequent proximity to the neighbors on our blocks, we start there. We ask Animators to recognize that God has gifted each and every one of those neighbors. By nurturing what’s STRONG, not focusing on what’s WRONG, we begin to think of our particular places, and their people, ecology, and associations, as partners in sacred, covenantal commitment. We argue that the Spirit works to weave all life together, and calls us to be co-weavers.
Our Scripture and faith traditions attest to that weaving work, and so do our experiences in our neighborhoods as do the experiences of long-time practitioners of ABCD. During our weekly sessions, we put scripture, tradition, our experiences, and the experiences attested to in McKnight and Russell’s The Connected Community into conversation with one another.
We support each other in our co-creative neighboring work, pray for each other, train with each other, and send each other out.
We take stock of God’s gifts through asset maps, then use these maps to mobilize neighbors toward common dreams.
We help form Connected Communities that counter isolation and polarization. These communities pre-figure the loving world God wants for us, where everyone’s gifts play a part.
While we start in a Christian context, we believe that God’s gifts are evidenced in the experiences of other faith traditions that we have much to learn from. People of other faiths are welcome to join us. We work across denominations within the Christian faith as well. We have worked with Catholics, United Methodists, Disciples of Christ, and evangelicals, and we can’t wait to work with you!
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Nope! US citizenship is not required because this is a contractor position. If chosen, you will complete a 1099 form. You can apply with an ITIN!
This position is grant-supported to allow us to pay both Kansans and non-Kansans.
